


words that it was forming

by Sroloc_Elbisivni



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Captivity, Gen, Hostage Situation, Off-screen torture, Pre-Slash, discussion of injuries, loss of prosthetic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-31
Updated: 2016-07-31
Packaged: 2018-07-28 11:44:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7638913
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sroloc_Elbisivni/pseuds/Sroloc_Elbisivni
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“They want information. On the Shimada clan, I believe, but Overwatch will do.”</p><p>“Huh.” McCree tested his teeth with his tongue. “Reckon they’ll drag me in next?”</p><p>Hanzo’s muscles tensed against his back. Now what was that for?</p><p>“Unless you do something exceptionally foolish,” Hanzo informed him, voice scathingly neutral. “I believe you will emerge from this situation with your brain as poorly intact as it ever was.”</p><p> </p><p>aka McCree and Hanzo get held hostage together and McCree does exceptionally foolish things.</p>
            </blockquote>





	words that it was forming

**Author's Note:**

> Huge thanks to iz for being a cheering squad, generally enabling me writing these dumbs, and letting me use her excellent "handsy" joke. 
> 
> Further warnings in end notes.

McCree strained to get a look at the door of the cell as he heard it slide open, swearing when the bindings proved too tight for him to turn fully.

“Shut up,” what sounded like the short guard snapped at him. There was the sound of Hanzo muttering something in Japanese, a boot striking flesh and chains rattling, and then a weight pressing against McCree’s back as Hanzo was strapped into the other chair.

Footsteps, and the door slid shut again.

“Hanzo?” There was no response, so McCree tipped his head back to gently knock against Hanzo’s skull. “Hey, Hanzo. Hanzee. Han So—”

“Shut _up._ ”

McCree was so relieved to hear his voice that he let out a breath that felt like he’d been holding it since they’d dragged Hanzo away. “No can do. Mission check, standard procedure, what’s your status, partner?”

He could feel Hanzo’s chest expanding against his back. “It was only the first round, to try and soften me up. Largely, bruising. No broken bones.” The _yet_ hung unspoken in the air. “They want information. On the Shimada clan, I believe, but Overwatch will do.”

“Huh.” McCree tested his teeth with his tongue. “Reckon they’ll drag me in next?”

Hanzo’s muscles tensed against his back. Now what was that for?

“Unless you do something exceptionally foolish,” Hanzo informed him, voice scathingly neutral. “I believe you will emerge from this situation with your brain as poorly intact as it ever was.”

“Ouch. You wound me, darlin’.” McCree considered his options. It was a fifty-fifty shot that Talon would drag him in for information—he had more history with Overwatch, but if they were largely interested in the Shimada…

Well, it looked like he’d have to do something exceptionally foolish.

 

* * *

 

“Hey, Hanzo.”

Hanzo broke off glaring at the door when McCree started knocking their heads together. “What?”

“Yanno that one bit from Indiana Jones?”

“From where?” Was this another of the man’s ridiculous sayings?

McCree let out a disappointed whistle. “We’ll have to watch ‘em back on base. Point is, ya think we can move the chairs if we work together? Sorta shuffle ‘em?”

Hanzo glanced around. The room was bare concrete from every angle. “To what purpose?”

McCree huffed. “I been staring at this back wall for a dog’s age. Figure the door’s gotta be more interesting.”

“No.” The way they were now, Hanzo could provide a final line of defense, could stand between McCree and the rest of the world. Putting him first would leave him visible. Vulnerable.

Unacceptable.

“Oh, c’mon, you gotta be kidding me.” McCree’s tone was petulant. “At least sideways? So neither of us is facing the door?”

Hanzo paused. It would be good to know if the chair could be moved. And that way, he would still be able to see and be seen.

“Fine.”

Even with their arms and legs secured, they managed to pull off a kind of shuffling hop that turned the chair a hundred and eighty degrees, providing both of them with a view of the steel door if they turned their heads. Hanzo settled in to wait.

He would not be caught off guard when they returned. He would make sure they came for him, and him alone.

He would make sure Jesse made it out of this unharmed. No matter what it took.

Of course, as soon as the cell door opened, McCree called out, “Hey, jackass!” and spat directly at the guard’s face.

It landed, dead-on, and in the silence that followed, Hanzo could hear McCree whisper “high noon,” under his breath.

Hanzo wasn’t sure, had he been unchained, which impulse to strangle he would have followed first.

The guard wiped off his face deliberately and scowled. “Looks like it’s your turn.”

Hanzo swore under his breath. “You cannot be serious. He knows nothing. Less than nothing. He is the worst kind of fool!”

The guard shoved a baton into his windpipe, knocking away his air supply, before undoing McCree’s chains and foisting him out the door in a frogmarch. The idiot had the audacity to twiddle his fingers at Hanzo before the door closed.

Hanzo was left alone, in the oppressive silence, with only his fears to keep him company.

* * *

 

McCree got to walk back into the cell on his own two feet, at least.

Or, well, stagger. But he made it there alright, with only a few shoves around from the guards.

Hanzo didn’t say a word the whole time they were being chained back together.

As soon as the door closed, he growled out, “How badly are you injured?”

McCree squeezed his eyes shut, mentally cataloguing injuries. “Mostly ‘lectrical burns. Few bruises, too. Aaaand…” he wiggled one foot and winced. “Yeah, coupla toes cracked at least.”

“Your head?”

“Fine as it ever was.”

“Good.”

And with that, Hanzo slammed his head backwards to painfully collide with McCree’s bare skull.

“Shit!” McCree leaned forward, skull throbbing, getting out of range. “Whadja go and do a thing like that for?”

“You are an _idiot!”_ McCree’s long association with Genji made him fair sure that what followed was some pretty vociferous swearing in Japanese. English eventually reappeared. “How dare you risk yourself in such a manner. You are even more stupid than I had first believed—”

“Now hold on, there.” McCree’s head hurt. “I served in Blackwatch, _friend._ In one of the worst gangs in the West afore that. This ain’t my first rodeo. I know when to keep my mouth shut.”

“Clearly not, or you would not have provoked that guard so deliberately. I told you—”

Hanzo cut off, suddenly. McCree couldn’t help but wince.

“You did not.” Another pause. “You _did._ ”

“Couldn’t let you have all the fun,” McCree offered, keeping his tone light. He tried leaning forward, and hissed out through his teeth when it brought his burns in contact with the chains.

“You should not have gotten involved.” Hanzo sounded as furious as McCree had ever heard him. “It was _not your place.”_

“I been involved in Overwatch since before you were a speck in yer mama’s eye, Shimada. Even if I am a know-nothing fool of the worst kind.”

Hanzo’s back stiffened, then slumped. “I did not mean—” he began. “That is to say—”

“Aw, stuff it, I know what you meant.” Even hopping mad, McCree couldn’t let him stew in guilt. Man carried enough around as it was.

They sat there and shared silence for a bit.

“Sound carries in this complex,” Hanzo eventually said, softly. “I could hear you. Screaming.”

“Aw, shit. I’ll try to be quieter next time.”

Hanzo growled out something else in Japanese. “There will not _be_ a next time, you fool.”

McCree grinned to himself. _Wanna bet?_

“Whatever you are thinking, desist at once.”

Too late.

 

* * *

 

The next time the door opened, the guards were only interested in Hanzo.

McCree threw out some truly impressive insults, to little avail. Hanzo could hear punches land and gritted his teeth, forcing himself not to lash out.

“Calm down, _sweetheart,_ you’ll get your turn,” one of the guards sneered.

Hanzo fought down the impulse to tear out their throats through great force of will and reminding himself that it would only give them a weakness to exploit.

Hanzo did not resist as they escorted him through the facility. Perhaps if they thought he would be easier to break, they would be more likely to leave McCree alone.

He still did not give up any information.

He did not let himself scream, either.

McCree would be listening.

Afterwards, when they dragged him back to the cell, he could not suppress a small surge of victory. McCree would be inside. He would be as safe as he could be in this situation.

 

* * *

 

McCree was not inside.

The victory turned to bitter dread coiling in Hanzo’s gut.

They locked him back into the chairs, and it was even worse to be put there alone than it had been when they had carted off the idiot cowboy.

At least then, he knew that he had been there.

At least then, he had thought he would come back.

There were no sounds of screaming, and the silence felt like it would choke him.

* * *

 

When the door opened, Hanzo let himself go slack against the ropes. Coming up fighting would work better if unexpected.

Then came the jingle of chains.

Years of training had given Hanzo powerful self-control, but he could not stop himself from jerking his head up as McCree stumbled through the door, shoved from behind by a guard.

“McCree,” and Hanzo knew it was a misstep, knew it was a bad idea, but he couldn’t stop himself.

McCree’s head jerked up, face lined with pain and worry that smoothed out, just a bit, when he saw Hanzo. “Hey, Sh’mada.”

“Shut up. Keep moving,” the taller of the guards ordered, shoving at McCree. The cowboy took a step forward and almost tipped over, and Hanzo finally realized that his prosthetic arm was missing.

A spark came off the gaping socket of McCree’s shoulder as Hanzo watched.

The guard went through the routine of shoving McCree down into the chair and securing him, and Hanzo waited impatiently for her to leave so he could find out how badly McCree had gotten himself hurt this time.

But instead of leaving right away, she turned to Hanzo’s restraints and began undoing them.

“Wha?” McCree’s voice was slurred. “The hell’re you—”

Hanzo heard the by now familiar _thwack_ of a nightstick smacking flesh. “Shaddup, you.”

Hanzo, restraints now loosened, tried to make a fist, only to receive a similar whack. “I’m watchin’ you. No funny business, now.”

Hanzo said unkind things about her parentage in Japanese and got another whack, possible on principle, before being dragged up and out of the chair.

“Hey,” and the slurring in McCree’s voice was even more evident now. “Where’re you takin’ him? _Where’re you—”_

The slamming of the door abruptly cut him off.

 

* * *

 

Jesse had sat there in the dark silence for a bit, the second time they’d taken Hanzo away. He was spitting mad, and didn’t even have anyone to share it with, which only made him madder.

By the time the door opened again, he had plenty of chewed-over material and was ready to give Hanzo a piece of his mind.

But only the guards came in.

They moved over to the seat, and when it became clear that they were going to move him, he couldn’t stop himself from asking, “Where’s Hanzo?”

They ignored him.

“I _said_ , where’s Shimada? What’ve you done with him?”

They were less than forthcoming. McCree became less than cooperative.

He kicked and shoved, making them fight to get him out the door, and by the time he had room to move, he could use his stronger bionic arm to fight the restraints.

In retrospect, when he was sitting alone in the dark again with his metal nerve endings literally sparking, he could see why that had been a bad idea.

He could only hope to god that taking his arm hadn’t been the beginning of further escalation.

McCree forced himself to breathe in, and out, and in again. He had seen Hanzo. Hanzo was still here. Hanzo was still alive.

For now.

“ _Dammit._ ”

Eventually, the door swung open again, and McCree had to crane his neck, but he could see Hanzo, more-or-less upright, entering the room in front of the guard.

“Han—” he started, and then cut off when the guard aimed a pistol at him.

“Say one more word, and I shoot,” he said, flatly.

McCree said nothing until the guard was gone, and he and Hanzo were chained up against each other again.

“How ya doin’?” He leaned back, as much trying to rest his weight as to reassure himself that Hanzo was there.

“Much more bruising. Electrical burns on my back and arms.” McCree could feel Hanzo’s chest inflate, then catch. “Damaged ribs. Whether bruised or cracked, I am not sure. Yourself?”

“Ain’t got one arm anymore. Nerves still connected. More’n a couple broken toes. Think m’good wrist might be cracked too, hurts like a bitch. Few more burns, you’d think they’d be tired of the taser b’now. Other’n that, n’ the earlier mess, just peachy keen.”

They didn’t say anything for a minute or so. There was nothing much to say.

“Listen, I just want—”

“I’m sorry.”

Hanzo cut McCree off, which was probably a good thing, since he wasn’t sure where he was going to actually go with that sentence. Probably somewhere embarrassing.

Wait, Hanzo said something.

“Don’t know what you’ve got to be sorry for.”

“They were after me. I should have been able to get away on my own—” He shifted, and hissed quietly with pain. “—at the very least, to not drag you down with me. You do not deserve to be here.”

“Shut yer mouth.” McCree would have tried that head-bonk thing Hanzo did earlier, but he hurt too much. “I’m here because I want to be here, idjit.” He paused. “Okay, not here in this glamorous little cell, but. Overwatch-here.” Words were tricky when his brain was trying to tell him his arm was on fire. “I knew what the hell I was gettin’ into. ‘Sides, they came after you with ten, fifteen, guys—even you can’t beat rush tactics.”

“Seventeen,” Hanzo corrected, his voice odd. “You would not have been able to even the score, much. You were not. You did not have to come fight with me—you could have gotten reinforcements.” It felt like there should be a question there, but it wasn’t asked.

McCree answered it anyway. “Already called, they were too far away, wasn’ ‘bout to let you go down fightin’ alone.”

More silence, and then: “That was exceptionally foolish.”

“’S what I’m good at.”

Silence and pain ruled the space between them for the next while.

 

* * *

 

Hanzo was breathing slowly, as deeply as his ribs would allow without pain, the next time the door opened.

Neither of them had brought up turning the chair again, but he still turned his head defiantly, determined to catch their attention.

McCree stayed silent, but there was a brush of shaggy hair against Hanzo’s neck that made him sure the cowboy was doing the same, glaring down their captors with all the redirected pain he could muster.

There were more guards than before. Hanzo felt a momentary surge of triumph when they moved to unchain him, but after he was on his feet and resecured, there came yet more sounds of chains.

Hanzo was shoved out of the cell before he could see, but he knew well enough what was going on as McCree’s swearing drifted down the hall behind him. Following him.

To borrow one of those swears: _dammit._

They didn’t go to the last two rooms he had been interrogated in, instead making two lefts and a right into a larger room. It was largely bare, largely dark. Two light bulbs hung on strings from the ceiling, creating two pools of light several feet apart. In each, separate, pool sat a chair. With restraints.  

Hanzo tried fighting back, then, but it was no use. He was locked down into the one to the left of the door, and before long, McCree followed, swearing and struggling as he was strapped down into the one on the right. The guards stepped into the shadows.

An utterly nondescript man in cargo pants and a white button-down, one Hanzo had not seen before, stepped out behind McCree. “Hanzo Shimada. A pleasure to meet you.”

Hanzo could see McCree’s eyes widening at the sound of the strange man’s voice, and his stomach dropped even further. He kept his voice level when he spoke, however, drawing on years of practice.

“I regret that I cannot say the same.”

“Hmmm.” The man did not take the opening, but continued to walk until he stood at the side of McCree’s chair. “Your clan isn’t very happy with you, you know. They’ve put quite a large price on your head, alive and decently intact. I imagine they’d like to tear you apart themselves. But it did work out in your faor, considering how my employers are only being picky about how they get information from you in light of the potential payoff.”

Hanzo kept his face impassive. “Have you not lost an advantage by telling me this?”

The man smiled. It wasn’t a nice smile.

Then he turned around and socked McCree in the face, brutally and efficiently.

 _”Fuck!”_ McCree swore, leaning forward. He coughed out blood onto the floor once, twice, before the torturer—what else could he be?—grabbed his chin and forced it up, studying.

He let go, only to grab onto McCree’s nose and give it a vicious twist, resulting in a yell, before removing his grip and wiping the blood off of his hands with a handkerchief.

“There are no such stipulations for your friend, here.”

 Hanzo knew that the worst thing he could do was display any emotion that might reveal this tactic was working. Terror dropped his stomach out, but his face remained impassive.  
Or so he thought. Something brief must have flashed, because the torturer gave another of those unpleasant smiles.

“Shimada-San—” McCree coughed, voice wet with blood. “Hanzo—don’ give—bastard—‘nythin’.

“I was not planning to,” Hanzo said. His voice, he kept flat, but his fists clenched against his will.

“Keep telling yourself that, Mr. Shimada.” The man idly stomped down on McCree’s foot and punched him in the gut—McCree, at this point, just hissed and groaned, which was almost worse.

And then their torturer paused for a second, pulled on a rubber glove from his pocket, and yanked on the wires hanging out from McCree’s shoulder.

The scream Jesse let out was high, agonized, and pierced straight through Hanzo’s stomach.

The torturer, damn him, looked _pleased_.

“Oh my. Yes, I think this will do quite well.” He gave another tug, and McCree let out another scream, and Hanzo couldn’t stop himself from lunging against the restraints.

He wanted to hit himself, afterwards, but it was too late. The torturer had already turned around, his not-nice smile morphing into something even worse.

“Quite well,” he repeated. “I believe I’ll go get some tools. Don’t you go anywhere.”

Hanzo cursed him, vividly, as he left. McCree remained slumped in his own chair, breathing ragged.

“McCree—”

“Save it.”

“I on—”

“I said _save it._ I don’t wanta hear it.”

Of course he wouldn’t. Hanzo had failed him, again.

Hanzo forced himself to breathe in, out, in again, trying to meditate past the pain that felt like it had seeped into his bones and the worry clawing at his stomach.

He wasn’t sure how long he had been unfocused when an alarm started blaring somewhere outside the room.

He lifted his head to look at McCree, only to find McCree looking at him.

 _Overwatch?_ Hanzo mouthed.

McCree responded with a vicious grin as three of the four guards left the room. Hanzo immediately had a bad feeling.

“Hey, asshole.”

Hanzo closed his eyes as the guard stalked over to McCree. A weakness, perhaps, but this could not end well.

There was a _thud,_ a yell of pain, several more crashing noises, and the sound of someone spitting.

“Allllright, Shimada-san, you can look now.”

Hanzo opened his eyes to see McCree, wrist bound to the now-separated-arm of the chair, standing over the guard. His face was still lined with pain, but the fierce grin remained.

“Did something ‘ceptionally foolish again. Sorry.”

* * *

 

McCree crept along behind Hanzo as they made their way further out into the facility, clutching improvised weapons made from the wood of the chair.

“Wait,” he hissed as they came up on a corner. “Lemme go fir—”

“No.”

“You’ve got _broken ribs._ ”

“They may be just bruised. You are missing an arm,” Hanzo hissed at him, shoving him back.

“So I should get first crack at the bastards who took it.”

“I said _no._ ”

“Dammit—” He shut up at the sound of footsteps in the hall, then shoved Hanzo out of the way.

“Your mother was a hamster and your father smelled like elderberries!”

There was a yelp and a flash of blue light, and then Tracer was back and giving him a very unimpressed look.

“Good to see you too, love.”

McCree shrugged, and then winced. “Thought’cha were a bad guy.”

Hanzo came up beside him and jabbed him with an elbow, making them both wince. “You are an idiot.”

Tracer blinked over and made a concerned noise. “What happened to your arm?”

“Guards decided to get a little handsy.”

Hanzo elbowed him again.

 

* * *

 

Mercy split them up as soon as they were back at the base.

Hanzo’s reserves had finally run out somewhere on the flight home, meaning he wasn’t in much shape to do anything other than comply when she ordered him and McCree into separate rooms for overnight observation.

Genji stopped by to visit while the nanobots were doing their work. The two of them spoke little, mostly reassurances and exchanges of information, but the overall silence was comforting. It was good to share space with a familiar presence, without threats.

But eventually Genji left, and the room was filled with a silence that was only silence, and Hanzo closed his eyes and tried to rest.

He realized his mistake not ten minutes later, bolting awake breathless from memories of McCree’s screams.

_Ziegler’s scolding be damned._

Keeping the wireless monitor pad attached, he slipped out of his room into one just across the hall.

McCree snapped his head up when the door opened, relaxing when he saw who it was.

That absurd hat was once more back in his hands.

“Being alone a bit too much for you, too?” McCree’s voice was slurred, but this time with the absence of pain caused by drugs. His prosthetic socket had been cleared of wires and covered with bandages.

“A bit,” Hanzo conceded. He snagged the room’s chair and settled into it, watching the door. “I will take the first watch.”

He didn’t see McCree ease his posture, but his exhale of relief was palpable. “Wake me up in two hours, then.”

“I will.” Hanzo sat, watching the door and listening to the rustle of sheets, to McCree’s breathing growing slower and deeper, to the silence.

It was a good silence.

**Author's Note:**

> Most torture in this fic is not explicit and happens off-screen, but the characters do talk about their injuries and at one point some of the torture happens on-screen. Skip from "the man smiled" to "Hanzo cursed him out, vividly, as he left" if you don't want to see it. 
> 
> If you want to talk more about these guys or overwatch in general, [come find me on Tumblr!](sroloc--elbisivni.tumblr.com)


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